Saturday, May 21, 2011

More Disgusting Historical Revisionism: CSA Black Soldiers!

The reams of odious filthy lies to try to alter the warp and woof of American history never ends for the terminal, congenital miscreants who seek to perpetuate the myth of a righteous, honorable Confederacy. It's bad enough these traitors or descendants of such have attempted to secure "vanity license plates" featuring the Confederate Battle flag in backward states like Florida, Mississipi and Kentucky, but they're also trying to rewrite history with their verminous, reprehensible revisionism. The latest affront: teaching that the Confederate states had black soldiers fighting for them!

Indeed, on October 20, 2010, The Washington Post reported that in Virginia, fourth-grade students received textbooks telling them that thousands of African Americans fought in Confederate armies during the Civil War. The textbook's author, who is not a historian, found that false claim repeated so many times on the Internet that she assumed it had to be true. This again discloses the folly of believing anything on the net, unless sources can be cross checked. Mere repetition, especially on the net, is not some kind of final litmus test and ought never be accepted - particularly for a textbook author.

But this isn't new! It was James Loewen, in Lies My Teacher Told Me, who first documented the extent and travesty of American History books, and how most had so much error it was more like reading a work of fiction. From the causes of the Indian wars, and annihilation of native peoples, seizure of their lands, to the cause of the Civil War (as taught in the South) and even modern history, from the era of the JFK assassination, most Americans have been exposed to a purely confected history not remotely real.

The circulation of the black Confederate soldiers bunkum is particularly loathsome as it seeks to make the victims of slavery part and parcel of being the defenders by fighting for the traitors that seceded (to preserve black slavery). But this is utter nonsense! Writing in The Washington Post (October 30, 2010):

Bruce Levine observes, in conjunction with this vile perpetuated myth (mostly circulated by the likes of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and their ilk):

"According to that myth, anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 Southern blacks -- both free and enslaved -- served voluntarily, loyally, consistently and as fully fledged combatants in the South. Most of those who make these claims do it to bolster another, bigger myth -- that most Southern blacks supported the Confederacy.

As a matter of fact, one of Jefferson Davis's generals did advise him to emancipate and arm slaves at the start of the war. But Davis vehemently rejected that advice. It "would revolt and disgust the whole South," he snapped. During the first few years of the war, some others repeated this suggestion. Each time, Richmond slapped it down. Not only would no slaves be enlisted; no one who was not certifiably white, whether slave or free, would be permitted to become a Confederate soldier.

And the Confederacy's policy of excluding blacks from its armed forces was effective. John Beauchamp Jones, a high-level assistant to the secretary of war, scoffed at rumors that the Confederacy had units made up of slaves. "This is utterly untrue," he wrote in his diary. "We have no armed slaves to fight for us." Asked to double-check, Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon confirmed that "No slaves have been employed by the Government except as cooks or nurses in hospitals and for labor."

Levine also points out a very logical reason why the Confederacy would never permit any armed Negro soldiers, since its plantation aristocracy always insisted that blacks were inferior to whites. They were "only suited to dull, arduous labor but incapable of assuming the responsibilities of free people, citizens or soldiers. As Seddon explained, since the Confederacy had taken that stand, both before the North and before the world, it could not allow the employment as armed soldiers of negroes.". Putting blacks into gray uniforms would be seen as a confession that this ideology was a lie and controvert the entire basis for fighting the North on preserving slave holding.

So why has this issue been resurrected? Mainly because with the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, assorted groups have found it in their vested interest to promote propaganda. The propaganda so amenable to the gullible and nitwits, serves two primary purposes:

(1) Attempts to show that Blacks accepted slavery to a degree if they were also prepared to fight for its cause, and

(2) Deflect attention that the War was fought mainly over slavery (if black soldiers also participated) and was in fact, mainly over secession.

Which last is absolute bollocks, since the slave states had an investment of nearly $3.5 billion (in 1860 dollars) in its human capital and worth more than the then value of all America's banks, factories, railroads and ships. Thus, they knew if that human capital was neutralized they couldn't survive economically. (Another reason they also wanted to export it to Kansas and places farther West (after the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act), to enhance the geographical expanse. Which, of course, set up a massacre of innocents by pro-slavers then the Pottawottomie Creek massacre and John Brown's aggressive response to it - hacking to death five proslavery Confderates with swords. THAT was the real opening for the Civil War.)

Meanwhile, renowned historian Ferguson M. Bordewich, has roundly condemned this insane revisionism. According to Bordewich, author of Washington: The Making of the American Capital and Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America.

"It's a myth. It is nonsense. I could be blunter than that, but you get the drift. It's a meaningless term, 'black Confederates.' There is no evidence whatsoever from any responsible source that there was more than the occasional slave who was forced to serve in the war."

Amazingly, those who claim to be "Christians" and continually rant against "Satan" as being the "Father of Lies" seem to embrace this big lie with no problem. Perhaps, just perhaps, if they are so oblivious to lies, we ought to exercise extreme skepticism when they claim to know the "truth" in their bibles!

About Me

Specialized in space physics and solar physics, developed first astronomy curriculum for Caribbean secondary schools, has written thirteen books - the most recent:Fundamentals of Solar Physics. Also: Modern Physics: Notes, Problems and Solutions;:'Beyond Atheism, Beyond God', Astronomy & Astrophysics: Notes, Problems and Solutions', 'Physics Notes for Advanced Level&#39, Mathematical Excursions in Brane Space, Selected Analyses in Solar Flare Plasma Dynamics; and 'A History of Caribbean Secondary School Astronomy'. It details the background to my development and implementation of the first ever astronomy curriculum for secondary schools in the Caribbean.